“What would you call it?” said Rik.
“Light summer mist.”
As soon as they came through the Inn’s door, Rik felt as if they were making a mistake. The place was crowded, and it had been the noise that attracted them, but now that he was inside, he could see that a couple of tables were crowded by blond haired men in black uniforms. All of them had the cropped hair, flat noses and high cheekbones he had come to associate with easterners. He looked at Weasel who looked at the Barbarian who shrugged. “I fancy a beer and no ten of these blue-nosed bastards is going to stop me having one,” he said.
Under the circumstances, Rik could not back out and leave his friends, much as he would have liked to. Besides, the bouncers looked big and efficient. There were three of them visible, and one of them had a leather wrapped cosh in his hands. Perhaps things would not come to blows, he thought. He took one look at the Barbarian and he thought, and perhaps pigs will grow wings and fly.
Weasel grinned confidently at the locals, and got them seats at a table. Half a dozen young apprentice lads were already there. Weasel ordered drinks for the whole lot of them, a transparent ploy to the get the townsmen on their side if trouble broke out. Within minutes he and the apprentices were chatting away like old friends, while the Barbarian met the menacing glares from the Easterner’s table with ones of his own.
It was Rik’s first beer in a long time and he took it slowly, savouring the taste and feel of the bubbles on his tongue. The Barbarian leaned forward, pointed a sausage-sized finger at him, licked some froth from his walrus moustache and asked; “So what’s it like, shagging one of the Elder Race?”
Rik looked at him. Was it possible the big man was really jealous? That might prove a dangerous thing if it were the case. He considered for a moment, and said; “None of your business.”
The Barbarian laughed. “Fair enough. Got to hand it to you though, Halfbreed. It did not take you long to get over little Rena. Probably just as well now that she’s moved in with the Lieutenant.”
Rik felt as if someone had just twisted a knife in his gut. “I don’t give a toss,” he lied. “Anyway, I’m not certain she has moved in with him.”
“No- she’s just a few tents away so if old Hookhand fancies a quickie he can nip across. Must have nerves of steel that girl. I don’t fancy doing it with someone with a hook. I shagged a bar-girl in Harven once who had a wooden leg. That was an interesting experience.”
“You might have got woodworm,” said Rik.
“Dangerous when your head's made of oak,” said Weasel.
“Ha-bloody-ha. She was a nice girl, actually. I felt sorry for her.”
“How did she lose the leg?”
“Wyrmbite. Worked for a merchant and one day one of his river wyrms just felt peckish. She was fired.”
“Worse things happen at sea,” said Rik. He did not want to think about all the people whose bad luck he had seen back in Sorrow. It inevitably brought his thoughts back to Rena, who had lost her family in the last plague outbreak.
“You’re a cold bastard sometimes, Halfbreed,” said the Barbarian. “Although you’re right- worse things do happen at sea. I remember when…”
A shadow fell across the table. Rik looked up to see a massive easterner standing there. He was almost as big as the Barbarian and it looked like his nose had been broken and badly set several times. He had a cauliflower ear and his eyes had the puffy quality that bare-knuckle boxers sometimes got.
“You want something?” said the Barbarian. “A knuckle sandwich maybe?”
“I want to propose a toast,” said the Easterner, obviously drunk. “To the Queen-Empress. May she live a thousand years.”
“Well, you’ve done that now,” said the Barbarian. “Maybe you should run back to your friends before they miss you.”
“You will not drink her majesty's health?”
“Certainly,” said Rik. “To Queen Arielle, rightful ruler of the Terrarchy. May she live a thousand years.”
He raised his stein, and then tossed its contents into the Easterner’s face. The Barbarian whacked him in the testicles with his closed fist. As the easterner crumpled, Rik brought his stein down on his head.
“A waste of good beer that,” said the Barbarian, as he picked the fallen man up bodily, lumbered across the room and tossed him at his mates. With a whoop Weasel and the apprentices rose and joined the fight.
The Barbarian hefted a bench, and used it to belabour some of the Easterners. Not a bad idea, Rik thought, picking up another stein to use as a weapon, and wading into the fray. In a moment all was a chaos of blood and beer and broken teeth. Ahead of him he saw a black-clad man. He ducked and lashed out with a kick, catching the man on the shin. While his foe was distracted, he smacked him with the stein. The Easterner went down as if pole-axed.
Rik glanced around and saw that the Sardeans were withdrawing, carrying their unconscious friend's with them as they made a fighting retreat. He helped pick up the man he had just downed, and along with one of the apprentices carried him to the door and threw him out into the mud.
A moment later there was a rousing cry of victory. The Purples were defeated. The Scarlets and the Kharadreans victorious. The Barbarian raised both hands above his head in a prize-fighters gesture of triumph.
“Time for some serious drinking,” said Weasel.
“Let’s hope the bastards don’t return with reinforcements,” said Rik.
“Have a beer,” said the Barbarian. One of the apprentices grabbed Rik by the shoulder and said; “Talorean, Kharadrean, we are brothers, yes?”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Rik. A long evening of boozing stretched ahead of them.
Chapter Twelve
Fharog’s footman announced the presence of Lord Jaderac and Lady Tamara. His master had trained him well. He ushered the pair into the dining room quite as well as any of Sardec’s family retainers. Sardec rose to greet the visitors as they entered. Jaderac was dressed in a new spotless purple-black uniform with silvered epaulettes. His companion wore a blue formal dress that made her look quite stunning.
The Lady Tamara was tall and slender. Her hair was thick, blonde and lustrous, piled high on top of her head to reveal her pointed ears. Several elder signs set in blue fire-jewels glittered on her throat. There were more of them set on rings on her fingers. It seemed that like Jaderac she was a sorcerer, or liked to pretend she was.
Sardec thought he was being unfair- doubtless she was what she seemed to be. The folk of the East spent a lot of time studying the old arts, which was easier for them than it was for westerners because they had held on to most of the old libraries of arcane lore during the Schism. In its way, it was a reminder of exactly what the Taloreans would face in the coming war, and he wondered if that was the point.
Lady Asea walked forward to meet them. She was clad in a gown of silver metallic from the Old World that was a very definite reminder of exactly who she was. Her only visible sorcerous adjunct was a set of protective runes that glittered on her truesilver necklace.
Sardec stepped forward behind her, suddenly conscious of feeling shabby in his uniform jacket. Lady Tamara looked up at him flirtatiously. He noticed her lips were full and sensual. Her eyes gazed into his measuringly for a moment before she looked away. He and Jaderac exchanged bows and thus began the slow minuet of formalities that would lead them to the table.
The food was good and for the early part of the meal, as was polite, they kept strictly to the expected questions and topics of conversation. It turned out that Lady Tamara was the daughter of Lord Malkior, the former Chancellor of Sardea.
“You are very far from court, milady,” said Sardec. “What brings you to these rough climes?”
“I wanted to see this part of the world, and Lord Jaderac graciously consented to be my guide. In this and many other things.” She gazed adoringly at Jaderac, a thing that did not sit well with her earlier flirtatiousness. He wondered what was really between the pair. Briefly his eyes made contact with Lady Asea’s, and he saw that she too had noticed the gesture and its falseness. Sardec had met many Terrarch girls like Tamara before- seemingly empty headed, flirtatious, constantly in search of new conquests. Once he would have been interested, if only to spite Jaderac, but now she held no real interest for him, and he wondered at how he had changed. He thought of Rena. There was his answer. His pleasures were of a different kind.